Moving

Momeng has moved here.

possibly

I’ve never swept anyone off their feet
and probably never will
want to do so to anyone more than you

I’d take you to a shed by the sea
slightly rickety but cozy
where the breeze sometimes blows just the right way and

I’d pull you close
against my stubborn belly and
run clumsy fingers through your hair

I’d give you a bracelet, a necklace
a string of souvenirs
from all the places I’ve been without you and

I’d open every door
of my unexceptional life to you
and hold your hand and let you in

I’d write you a poem
and all my poetry would sing of you
slightly off-key but true as I can make it

I know I can't change your life
only show you the world I’d give
anything for you to live in with me

island vacation

It rained again today.
Sand’s less white than beige
and not quite fine
but still I felt the quivering
of the spaces between my fingers.
I walked as slowly as memory-
you and me once did
on that rainy beach more beautiful than this.

Now it’s too quiet.
Across this ocean pretending to be a lake
another island where you are not
unrolls across the horizon.
Glassy gray reflects bright blue.
Fellow travellers slice dark lines across the water
that, like them, disappear.
And what about these, my lines for you?

What about the curve of you
once right next to, once touching me?
Just another skein of rain from sky to sea?
What of our once-parallel trajectories,
the sharing of presents and histories
in effortless communion?
The same saltwater may lap at all beaches
but will our footsteps again follow the same shore?

Here’s another dispatch from where I am
to where you are. When you open this,
remember my lips against your forehead.
Remember the nearness of my smile
and the soft clarity of my voice beside your ear
and know that I think of you always.
Know that though my lines may sometimes bend
they always - will always - reach for you.

here.

here the same wildflowers
first I ever picked you
(tiny perfect delicate)
peek out and shout your name

here the same trees grow
shady spaces to shelter us
here the same clouds form out of reach
here the same wind blows

here the same sun
descends the same sky
into the same ocean we once watched
slowly darken together

here the same ghost
suffuses the same world
flows out of the same void
your absence continually leaves

hear the same distance
hear the same wind
hear the same flowers
hear the same longing

Death Cab for Cutie in Singapore!

So now the concert high has more or less subsided (after a full workday, and, well, two or so re-listenings to the setlist). In short, it was an awesome, amazing experience. In long, well, keep reading.


Minutiae, mundane details / pre-concert

I went to pick up my ticket early (at the venue itself), got a little lost and ended up taking two different long ways around from Dhoby Gaut to Fort Canning and back. It was on the walk back when I started regretting my decision to wear one of my long-sleeved button-up shirts (that I never usually get to wear): too friggin' hot in this country!

Met up with Nai whom I haven't seen in a long time (since his internship with Insync ended last year, actually), had a quick yakisoba dinner then we were off. It drizzled almost imperceptibly for a short while on our way there but thankfully it stopped and didn't develop into actual rain which would have dampened (get it?) the outdoor event. Arrived at the venue a good 30 minutes before the scheduled start time of 8pm.

Stood around and waited, caught up with a bit of shop talk (Nai's current consulting firm is involved in some pretty interesting projects at the moment), made our way to a spot as close to the stage as we could still secure at that point.


The main event

And then they came on and started the show. I remember a weird feeling of detached disbelief that lasted for a few more songs even as I thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful live performances, so much more vivid and immediate than studio recordings.

There's nothing quite like hearing a familiar song, a song that you love and have loved for a while down to memorizing the particular dynamics and shifts and progressions of its record, performed live and pleasantly surprising you and slipping free of your expectations at every turn. (To a lesser extent, I also enjoyed the slightly jarring feeling of not hearing the next song in the album order, as I've developed the habit of listening to music by album instead of shuffled or in my own playlist order.) I could go into details here regarding which songs I particularly loved the live versions of, but I'll restrain myself from fanboying to that extent!

It was pretty awesome to know all but a couple of the songs in more than a passing way. It felt great to sing along with the crowd during a few of their more well-loved songs, although even then I was still keenly aware of the presumption of my act (I never did develop any skill or confidence at karaoke...).

I really really loved the encore set, mostly for the last two songs: Tiny Vessels and Transatlanticism, which are among my favorites separately, and even more so played together. They're great, sad songs in their own rights, but I'll admit to having some personal (perhaps sentimental) associations that increase

(Minor quibble, though -- the crowd seemed rather sedate. There was just one guy off to my left who was appreciably moving his body, and I could've sworn some people were shooting him disapproving glances. Well, to each his own, I would've wanted to been moving more freely, but I'm too self-conscious about being graceless.)


Aftermath

My enjoyment of their music has been enriched in a strange, nearly undefinable way. I know it doesn't really make much sense, but listening to their music now, after having heard them perform live and having been within spitting distance of the actual human beings that make up Death Cab for Cutie, is just subtly different and better.

And it got me to thinking about which other bands and artists I'd like to see live while I still have the time and resources to go to concerts. We'll see, we'll see...

Never Let Me Go

Currently in a strange but not-too-unfamiliar funk after finishing reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go: reflective, melancholy, a little bit restless and feeling as if my perspective and the boundaries of my life could do with some stretching and expanding.


The book (Spoilers in this section!)

The book is great, an absorbing read but very subtle and restrained. Events unfold with wistful inevitability, and the reveal of the central science fiction element (the characters are clones created to be organ donors) is gradual and done quite straightforwardly and without fanfare, as the focus is instead on the characters dealing the best they can with their situation, trying to live their lives the best way they know how.

The inherent tragedy of their existence only serves to deepen the already-significant pathos of the strange interdependent love triangle between the main characters. Following their stories from being sheltered at the boarding-school-like Hailsham through to their eventual fates was delightfully bittersweet.

I also liked Kathy's narration. The adjective "impassive" pops up in my head but I'm not really sure that's the right way to describe it. Straightforward, matter-of-fact. Or perhaps the word I'm looking for is just how natural and easy it seemed to get inside her head.


The funk

Although I do find myself getting into a quiet, reflective mood upon finishing a good book, melancholy ones such as this induce such a mood much more easily and intensely. I'm still reeling a little even now, almost two hours after.

The first feeling I remember was one of narrow-mindedness or lack of perspective. I suppose this is something common to most good books and literature -- they do tend to (are supposed to?) show things in new lights and induce new ways of thinking about the same (important) things. In this particular case, I felt distinctly unknowledgeable in the matter of friendships and relationships and dealing with people. And to think that I don't have any tragic fate to contend with!

The next was a momentary feeling of loneliness and inevitability, but thankfully it quickly passed into this final urge to finally fully think about and do something about my own life, which is much less complicated or fraught. Perhaps "thinking fully" about my life is an unrealistic pipe dream, but I do feel as if there's a threshold I've been afraid to or too lazy to cross. I haven't been pushing myself hard enough to be honest and unafraid, to confront the truth. (And now I get a flashforward to that future time when I finally do so only to realize that I've been afraid of stupidly pathetic realizations all this time.)

In any case, planning to try my best to make this mood useful and actually get some thinking done, but I think I may be too tired (and still a little hungover) from carousing last night. (Oh, my tragic tragic life.)

What now?

Or, given this (the state, as far as I know it, of my world), what should come next?

I began reading Mindfulness in Plain English last week, in the hopes that beginning the practice of meditation would help me find or at least get closer to finding "the answers". I'm more than halfway through and so far I've found the book very readable, relatively no-nonsense (there are some offhand allusions to supernatural aspects of higher-level meditation that weren't too obnoxious), and most importantly, promising and encouraging.

However I've yet to actually even try sitting. Aside from never seeming to be able to just relax and take some time to sit and meditate, I also have the problem of finding a good spot to do so. The office does not really offer much in the way of comfortably private locations where I can sit and be still without getting distracted or feeling self-conscious.

As I continue to read and think about it more though, I'm growing more convinced that this may just be what I need to be able to actually maintain that rare sense of perspective that pops up from time to time in my head (through no fault of my own).